The Biographical Dictionary of America/Backus, James

BACKUS, James, pioneer, was born at Norwich, Conn. July 14, 1764; son of Elijah and Lucy (Griswold) Backus At the age of twenty-four he joined the colony which, under General Rufus Putnam, founded Marietta, and thus was one of the first settlers of Ohio. As agent of the Ohio company he made the first surveys in Marietta, and he is said to have built, at the junction of the Muskingum and Ohio rivers, the first frame house that was erected in Ohio, then the Northwest Territory. He was both a civil and military officer in the new settlement, as his journal shows. He was a man of means, and devoted his money without stint to the benefit of the settlement. He erected the first saw and grist-mill at Marietta, and had driven from New England the first yoke of oxen that ever trod the soil of Marietta. Ohio. The mill crank and saw, the grist-mill spindle, and the other irons were made by his father at the Backus iron works, Norwich, Conn. He remained at Marietta about three years, and in March, 1791, he returned to Yantic, to succeed his father in the management of the Backus iron works, which had been established by his grandfather, and carried on by his father, both prior and subsequent to the war of the revolution. He was widely known as a man of character, great energy and executive ability. In 1793 he was married to Dorothy Church, daughter of Charles Church Chandler, of Woodstock, Conn. He died Sept. 29, 1816.